gifted
sensitive
artistic
idealistic
seeker 
dreamscaper
tried for years
to save change it,
to save change them,
to save change the world,
tried for years to pull it, them, the world,
up to the surface, until, eventually, you were
going to drown, like you had seen so many people
around you drown, trying to do the same thing, lives
and joy, and dreams lost, carrying and carrying it all,
and yet there was always more and more and more to carry
because it, them, the world have been taught the lie that you are
good at it, that you are made for it somehow, that they can just tell
by looking at you, isn’t that what someone like you is for? Isn’t that what a life like yours is for? like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a once dormant volcano under water that is about to explode? to save it, them, the world?
this is you, wanting you, to remind you 
that the world needs your joy
because, and please lean in for this part,
what is the point of saving a world, 
or making art, in and for a world, 
or making beauty in a corner of the world,
with no joy in it.
Love, what would be the point of that, at all.
More joy please.
and not the 
piddly pleasures,
(or not only the piddly pleasures)
or not having to feel the
depth of things that, for you, are hard,
but joy the real one
you know the one I mean
you know somehow
joy the real one and
don’t ask me how.
don’t let them ask you how.
but tend to your joy.
the real one.
part of you already knows how.
it has always known
it has always known
somehow.

~ Nika Patrice

“The Joy You Have Always Known Somehow.”
© Saturday May 24, 2025 11:50am
Written By Nika Patrice.
Attribution: Nika Patrice.
All Rights Reserved.